Published Catalogue Text: In Harmony: The Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art , written 2013
11
Bowl with foliated and plaited inscription
Uzbekistan, Samarkand, Samanid period, 10th century[1]
Reddish earthenware covered in white slip and painted with black (manganese and iron) under clear lead glaze
8.6 × 25.5 cm (3 3/8 × 10 1/16 in.)
2002.50.89
Among the more extravagant developments in Samanid epigraphic wares is the elaboration of Arabic script—occasionally, as here, to the point of illegibility. The inscription on this bowl is a compendium of the major decorative devices and themes that embellish these wares, including the dramatic elongation or extension of letters and their ornamentation with plaiting, arcs, loops, knots, foliate terminals, and interlacings that seem to spring from their middles or the ligatures between them.[2] The most exuberant decorative devices occupy the upper zone of the inscription, that is, toward the center of the bowl.
Underlying the proliferation of ornament is an essentially rhythmic structure based on repetition of near-identical elements. Occurring three times in the band, and dividing it roughly into thirds, is a complicated and additive form of the letter alif, the tallest element in the inscription. Each alif bears three loops on its staff and at its top deflects rightward in a foliate terminal. Its baseline stretches to the right and has been transformed into a split leaf, from which a tendril curls upward and rightward and terminates in another split leaf. The tendril in turn joins, or nearly joins, a curving and branching foliate outgrowth that reinforces the rhythm established by the alif. Less regularly spaced are three plaited ornaments that spring once from a ligature and twice from a closed rectangular letter. Small rosettes composed of four dots enliven the interstitial space of the inscription band and mark the center of the bowl.
This bowl is well and thinly potted of a fine-grained earthenware. The exterior and interior are covered in a creamy white slip under a clear glaze. The flat and very slightly concave base is partially slipped and glazed. Only the interior is decorated; its brownish-black slip stands slightly raised above the surface, and a carving tool has been used to sharpen contours and to articulate the plaiting, twisting, and overlapping of the letters. The bowl has been reassembled from numerous fragments, with one notable loss on the rim.
Mary McWilliams
[1] The bowl was last fired between 700 and 1200 years ago, according to the results of thermoluminescence analysis carried out by Oxford Authentication Ltd. in 2011.
[2] The terminology here follows that used in Volov 1966.
